Social Psychology - social influence

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  • Created by: Shelly23
  • Created on: 02-01-17 17:01

Social influence: process whereby attitudes and behaviour are influenced by the real or implied precence of others

Compliance: superficial, public and transitory change in behaviour and expressed attitudes in response to requests, coercion or group pressures

Obedience to authority: unquestioning obeying to legitimate authority

Conformity: deep-seated, private and enduring change in behaviour and attitudes due to group pressure

Types of compliance

  • foot in the door technique - modest request > large request
  • door in the face technique - large request > modest request

Social norms: a system of norms specifies what is acceptable and what is not in society, community or group. Norms come into being - attaining and maintaing social order.

Sherif  1936

  • social norms emerge in order to guide behaviour under conditions of uncertainty

Lewin 1947

  • change the eating habbits of american families
  • factual lecture vs given information but also encouraged to talk among themselves and arrive at some kind of consensus about buying the food
  • only 3% of the abstract information group changed of behaviour
  • 32% of the norm group changed their behaviour

Asch 1951

  • Yielding to majority group pressure
  • Groups of students were asked to participate in a 'vision test'
  • line test, only one in the room was actually participating the rest were actors
  • average conformity rate was 33% opposed to 1% when task performed privetly
  • uncertainty and self doubt > self conciousness, fear of disapproval, feelings of anxiety

Reasons for yielding:

  • perception inaccurate, group was actually correct
  • others did not believe group was correct, but simply went along with the group in order to not stand out
  • small minority reported they saw the lines as the group did
  • 'indapendents' - stong in their belief of doing the task as directed

Milgrims obedience studies 

  • At 75V the 'learner' would begin to grunt
  • 120V  - 'Hey that really…

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